In the field of automotive manufacturing, parking brake assemblies are commonly used to prevent movement of a vehicle. In a typical parking brake assembly, an operator engagement feature, such as a pedal, lever or otherwise, is provided for causing engagement and disengagement of a parking brake actuating mechanism. Typically the operator engagement feature is remotely located and attached to the parking brake actuating mechanism, such as through a linkage (e.g. cable, wire, or otherwise), for causing movement of one or more components of the actuating mechanism. Through this movement and the configuration of the parking brake actuating mechanism, the shoes or pads of the vehicle braking system move to frictionally engage a corresponding component, such as a brake drum, rotor or otherwise.
In one particular application, a parking brake assembly may include a drum-in-hat brake system. In this application, the assembly commonly includes a parking brake actuating mechanism linkably attached to an engagement feature and configured to radially move the brake shoes outwardly against an interior surface of a brake drum, in response to operator input. Upon release of the actuating mechanism, the engagement feature returns to an original position thereby allowing the brake shoes to return to an original position through one or more springs associated with the drum brake system.
In another particular application, assembly of the linkage (e.g., brake cable) to typical actuating mechanisms is problematic especially after the brake drum has been installed. In such situations, there may be limited or no visual access to the inside of the brake assembly (e.g., so called “blind” cable assembly). As a result, the installation of the brake cable may be additionally difficult, time consuming and limited to specific manufacturing steps for assembly thereof, which can add cost to the manufacture of the vehicle and therefore to the consumer.
Examples of parking brake assemblies can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,913,156, 2,118,188, 4,678,067, 4,844,212, 4,887,698, 5,400,882, 5,529,149, 5,957,247, 6,412,609, 6,464,046, and 6,666,302, all incorporated by reference for all purposes. The present invention improves on these parking brake assemblies as shown and described herein.